We All Agree Now - By 'we' I Mean Intelligent People Under Sixty - That A Work Of Art Is Like A Rose. A Rose Is Not Beautiful Because It Is Like Something Else. Neither Is A Work Of Art. Roses And Works Of Art Are Beautiful In Themselves.
There Must Be Some One Quality Without Which A Work Of Art Cannot Exist; Possessing Which, In The Least Degree, No Work Is Altogether Worthless.
I Will Try To Account For The Degree Of My Aesthetic Emotion. That, I Conceive, Is The Function Of The Critic.
It Would Follow That 'significant Form' Was Form Behind Which We Catch A Sense Of Ultimate Reality.
All Sensitive People Agree That There Is A Peculiar Emotion Provoked By Works Of Art.
Art And Relligion Are Not Professions: They Are Not Occupations For Which Men Can Be Paid. The Artist And The Saint Do What They Have To Do, Not To Make A Living, But In Obedience To Some Mysterious Necessity. They Do Not Product To Live - They Live To Produce.
Art And Religion Are, Then, Two Roads By Which Men Escape From Circumstance To Ecstasy. Between Aesthetic And Religious Rapture There Is A Family Alliance. Art And Religion Are Means To Similar States Of Mind.
